Alibaba Arm UCWeb to Invest Rs 120 cr in India, to double headcount

The company aims to bridge the demand and supply gap through Big Data-backed content distribution, and is in “advanced“ talks with a couple of local mobile device makersMuntazir Abbas | ET Bureau | January 20, 2017, 08:54 IST

China-based UCWeb, a subsidiary of Alibaba Mobile Business Group, is investing Rs 120 crore in the Indian market to accelerate user generated digital content and is planning to more than double headcount by the end of this fiscal year.

The company aims to bridge the demand and supply gap through Big Data-backed content distribution, and is in “advanced“ talks with a couple of local mobile device makers to pre-install its Web browser.

UCWeb already has partnerships with Indian mobile makers such as Intex, Karbonn and Spice.

The investment is planned to spread over the next couple of years with manpower and office expansion in Gurgaon, a top company executive told ET. “Out of the planned Rs 200 crore spend, more than 60% will go towards India while rest is allocated to Indonesia,“ said Kenny Ye, general manageroverseas at Alibaba Mobile Business Group.

The Chinese browser major is also op timistic about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's `Digital India' programme and feels that mobile internet, from an end user perspective, would accelerate the ambitious initiative.

“Mobile internet will make Digital India happen. It is the need from the end users that will drive the programme, as more infrastructure is now ready for a bigger user base,“ Ye said.

He also said that people are more ea ger to get content over mobile Internet on-the-go, and service operators, handset makers and content providers should come together for a more pervasive user base. India, lately, has beco me one of the key growth regions for the UCWeb with 100 mil lion users, out of close to 500 million monthly active users worldwi de.

“We are planning to hi re 100 employees by the end of this fiscal and as many as 50% by next ye ar primarily in content operations to help pro and leverage big data to duct offering and leverage big data to understand more about end consumers,“ Ye said.

China's Alibaba acquired UCWeb in June 2014 for $ 4.5 billion, and the latter has grown to become the third-most sought after mobile browser, after Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari.